Tobias Petrick

Tobias Petrick was elected to fill the vacant seat left by Bo Turbeville when the Lehigh Acres Community Planning Corp. met last week. Turbeville had resigned in January saying he wanted to spend more time in other organizations such as the Weed & Seed group in Lehigh where is he president. He had been president of the LACPC for several years and helped guide the group to the completion of the Lehigh Acres land use plan, which is in Tallahassee awaiting approval by the state.

Another vacant seat has opened up because LACPC secretary Debra Bartha, said at the meeting on Feb. 9 that she was offering her resignation because she had accepted a job that required a lot of travel and she wouldn’t be able to attending meetings. Those interested in filling her seat should contact LACPC president Edd Weiner with a letter of intent or show up at the next meeting on March 10 at 6:30 p.m. at the Veterans Park Community Center and ask to be considered.

One person who says he will be there is Mike Bonacolta who lost by two votes in his bid to fill the seat won by Petrick. Tobias Petrick is known to his friends as “Toby,” and is a native of Germany and is a businessman in Lehigh in the shutter business.

Weiner told LACPC members he wanted them to break off into teams to come up with plans to develop a Lehigh Acres Development Code.

Listed on the agenda as “Assignment of Team Tasks were architectural review committee, a zoning committee, a landscape review committee and an accessibility and pedestrian Access Committee and asked for volunteers to team up to serve on those committees.

But before anyone joined any of the groups, a discussion followed with members asking for the committees to be expanded. And Liz Eilf, a member of the LACPC, noted that a few years back that the public was included in developing the Lehigh land use plan and thought they should be encouraged to become a part of the new groups, too.

“We need to start off on our own,” Weiner said as he addressed the different groups he has listed on the agenda.

The various topics of interest included zoning and other areas for a future Lehigh, working to implement the Lehigh land use plan when it is approved in Tallahassee. It will address the neighborhood nodes mentioned in the land use plan.

Paul Lambertucci, another member of the group, talked of future commercial growth and offered his concerns about utilities for new development, especially the issue of water and sewer, noting that in some areas there are no sewer lines. Weiner told him that under county rules, no commercial development can take place using septic tanks.

“This is going to become intense, the future growth of Lehigh,” Weiner said.

LACPC member Richard Georgian suggested that other groups also become a part of the groups such as the Lehigh Community Council, the economic board at the Lehigh Chamber of Commerce and some other organizations.

Damon Shelor, a member of the LACPC, who is also president of the Community Council, said he believed members of the Council should be invited to participate in committee meetings. The end result of the meetings of the different groups would result with a Lehigh community code, which would supersede the county code.

Many on the LACPC board came up with groups that should also be formed and Weiner said many of them could be implemented in a handful of a half dozen committees. He said he would come back in March with an overall list for the board to consider, taking into consideration their suggestions.

Meetings of the LACPC are held on the second Wednesday night of each month. Weiner said the county expects future developers to come before the board before they appear before the hearing examiner in Fort Myers. In this respect, Weiner said the LACPC could spin off with an architectural board as is the case in Bonita.

“When it gets to the Lee County commissioners, they want to know what the Lehigh Acres Planning Corp. said of the presentation before they will act,” Weiner said. He noted that in the past not all suggestions of the LACPC have been met by some developers.